] Working together, Obey and Young compiled a list of the
] most immediate security needs neglected in the first
] round of funding. They decided that only those items
] agreed upon by both parties would make the list. "We
] stripped the list down to its bare essentials," Obey
] recalls. "When that was done, I asked my staff to cut the
] remaining list in half to make sure there was absolutely
] no 'soft stuff.'" They came up with a list that was very
] hard to argue with--computer upgrades for the FBI,
] improved security for ports and nuclear facilities, new
] customs agents, and other top homeland security
] priorities totaling about $10 billion. On November 6,
] 2001, Obey and Young, along with their Senate
] counterparts Robert Byrd and Ted Stevens, were ushered
] into the White House Cabinet Room to meet with President
] Bush. "I understand some of you may want to spend more
] money on homeland security than we have requested," Bush
] told them, according to members of both parties who
] attended. "My good friend [Budget Director] Mitch Daniels
] here assures me that our [$20 billion funding] request is
] adequate. ... I want to make it clear that if Congress
] appropriates one dollar more than we have requested, I
] will veto the bill."

Our present, unwilling to do what is necessary.

The Talent Show: Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice...

] It is estimated that Americans now spend somewhere around
] $10 billion a year on adult entertainment, which is as
] much as they spend attending professional sporting
] events, buying music or going out to the movies.

“It employs an excess of 12,000 people in California. And in California alone, we pay over $36 million in taxes every year. So it's a very sizeable industry,” says Bill Lyon, a former lobbyist for the defense industry.

Then there are the big hotel chains: Hilton, Marriot, Hyatt, Sheraton and Holiday Inn, which all offer adult films on in-room pay-per-view television systems. And they are purchased by a whopping 50 percent of their guests, accounting for nearly 70 percent of their in-room profits. One hotel owner said, "We have to have it, our guests demand it.”

Very interesting 60 minutes article on the state of the porn industry. Brings up an interesting point concerning obscenity prosecutions: What community standard do you apply when the porn doesn't make it to the community-- ala individual distribution?

And beyond that, considering something like 70-80% of americans partake in porn, what are the current community standards anyway?

CBS News | Porn In The U.S.A. | November 25, 2003 12:55:49

] Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry is getting
] ready to loan his campaign more than $6 million financed
] by a mortgage on his family's Boston home.

*sigh*

CNN.com - Kerry set to loan campaign $6 million - Dec. 24, 2003

] Norway's most famous computer whiz got an early Christmas
] present on Monday. An appeals court in Oslo upheld Jon
] Lech Johansen's earlier acquittal on all counts of
] alleged copyright violations.

Round Two goes to Jon!

DVD-Jon wins new legal victory

] Blockbuster Inc. president and chief operating officer
] Nigel Travis on Thursday called for an end to regional
] coding on DVDs, saying they merely create more
] opportunities for piracy.

weren't the region codes supposed to prevent piracy? Oops! That was back when you needed a compliant, hardware DVD player to watch video...

Blockbuster CEO comes out against region codes...

] Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign spokeswoman is deeply
] unhappy with the New York Times' chief political
] correspondent for quoting her criticism of Howard Dean.
]
]
] The reason? The Massachusetts Democrat's team made the
] attack in an e-mail to reporters that contained a note
] asking that it be treated on "background," attributed
] only to a Democratic campaign. Adam Nagourney refused to
] go along.

Kerry's campaign sinks to ever deeper lows. He's already 6th (last among the credible candidates) in many polls, but he's going down screaming, taking potshots at the front runner as if he still has a chance, but trying to do it anonymously. Please, this is the kind of shit that kills interest in politics. Make your opinions attributable or shut the fuck up. Period.

Cutter claims that her "Truth Squad" is all about exposing the facts in this race for the public record, all the while sending pre-formatted attacks to the journalists she has cowed into printing them anonymously...

Ryan: I hate these kind of back-handed tactics. Put up or shut up. John Kerry was the one who couldn't ever give a definitive statement, now he wants to hold everyone else to a higher standard than he himself can achieve.

Stephanie Cutter -- getting a deserved smackdown

] LIN: But there is the opportunity now to interview
] Saddam Hussein to find out about weapons of mass
] destruction, if in fact they exist and where they are.
] Clearly, this is going to be useful to the United States
] and the war on terror.
]
] SHARPTON: Well, if we went to war to get an
] interview, I don't think that's what we were told. We
] went to war because we said we knew there were weapons.
] Not that we wanted to capture and interview him to see if
] there was weapons.
]
] We all know Sharpton can't (and shouldn't) win the
] nomination, but I hope whoever wins puts him in the
] cabinet as Secretary of One-Liners or something.

Ha!

The Talent Show: The rapier wit of Al Sharpton

QUOTE: What's your reaction? Laughing? Loathing? Fine—but be careful. Because the truth is, if average Americans of even 30 to 40 years ago could see us today, they'd think we were all spoiled just as rotten as any young Trump, Newhouse, or Bloomberg.

You know it's true. How many televisions do you have? Do you even know? How many channels do you get? Do your kids refuse to watch black-and-white programs? No one had a VCR in 1970. Now 240 million of us do, but VCRs are history now that Wal-Mart is selling DVD players for $29.

COMMENT: Good point. All people like to bitch and a disappointing number of people are clueless about basic life issues.

Fortune.com - Value Driven - Admit It: You, Too, Are Paris Hilton

] Never before has the House of Representatives operated in
] such secrecy:
]
] At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans
] benefits by three votes.
]
] At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, the House slashed
] education and health care by five votes.
]
] At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the
] Leave No Millionaire Behind tax-cut bill by a handful of
] votes.
]
] At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House passed the
] Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one
] vote.
]
] At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated
] Head Start by one vote.
]
] And then, after returning from summer recess, at 12:12
] a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion
] for Iraq.

great article on how the house has been run this year by the other side of the aisle.

TOMPAINE.com - Under The Cover Of Darkness

] If they say yes, supporting the war was a mistake, they
] are declaring that in a test case of the most important
] decision a president must make—when to go to war—they
] got it wrong. And if they try to explain their way out of
] this by talking about how the Bush administration
] "deceived the American people," they sound like George
] Romney, who was laughed out of the 1968 presidential race
] for saying he had been "brainwashed" into supporting the
] war in Vietnam.
]
]
] On the other hand, if they say no, I don't regret my
] support for this war, the question naturally arises:
] Well, if everything you're complaining about doesn't
] change your mind about the war itself, why are you making
] such an unholy fuss? Apparently, if you had been
] president, we'd be in the same mess.
]
]
] Like mice frustrated in a maze, the candidates seek
] escape routes out of this logical trap. Sometimes they
] say that the current mess is not the result of the
] decision to go to war. It is the result of Bush's inept
] leadership during the war and/or the postwar occupation.
] He should have waited longer for diplomacy to work. He
] should have insisted on the participation of other big
] countries instead of going it virtually alone. He should
] have been better-prepared for the challenges of
] rebuilding. He should not have been blindsided by
] continued opposition after the official fighting stopped.
]
]
] But the resolution these gentlemen supported gave
] war-making authority to George W. Bush, not to some
] idealized, all-knowing president such as themselves. The
] resolution did not say, "This authorization to start a
] war is valid only when used in conjunction with at least
] two other countries large enough to spot on a
] medium-sized world map." Nor did it tell Bush to wait
] until … until … until when? The resolution gave
] George W. Bush the authority to decide when the waiting
] for friends to join in or the foe to back down had gone
] on long enough. If Bush bungled this authority,
] entrusting him with it was a big mistake.

Good breakdown of the logical fallicies of the Democratic candidates positions on Iraq. a quick read worth reading.

Iraqing Their Brains - How can the Democratic candidates escape the trap they set for themselves? By Michael Kinsley